The race is on for medical science to use pig organs for human transplant recipients. Because pig organs are structurally similar, as the reasoning goes, pigs could serve as a virtually limitless supply of replacement organs. Over 5000 people a year die waiting for organ transplants. Such a breakthrough in medical science would save lives.
This would be a wonderful concept if only it were true.
Pigs happen to be several hundred yards away from humans on the taxonomy chart. Humans are not in the same species. Humans are not the same genus. Humans are not in the same family. Humans are not the same order.
Pigs and humans do not begin to share characteristics until we move up to the very broad categories of class, phylum and Kingdom. Specifically, humans and pigs are mammals with vertebrae in the animal kingdom.
That’s hardly enough in common to start such an intimate relationship.
Hundreds of thousands of years of completely separate evolution have taken place in humans and pigs. Each are adapted to different bacterium and virii that have also evolved symbiotic relationships within each creature.
What do you suppose what happened if anthrax, which lives harmlessly inside of pigs, among thousands of other deadly organisms, were to find its way inside of a human host?
It’s a perfectly valid question. Particularly in light of the fact that medical science has all but perfected human to human organ transplants.
A human body will seek out and destroy any foreign invader that is not a perfect match no matter how functional or necessary the invader, usually a vital organ, happens to be. While a transplant recipient of a human organ will always run this risk, the recipient will know why it happened.
A pig organ will not only be rejected ferociously but even survival carries a massive risk to the general population.
This begs the question: if human to human transplants are perfected, why run the risk of unleashing diseases that humans never had a chance to adapt for?
Why not just harvest humans?
The negative answer to harvesting humans is not because of ethics or morals. Medical corporations would most certainly harvest humans if they did not take so incredibly long to mature. Pigs not only mature in a fraction of the time of humans, but they also multiply faster than the measly one offspring per female produced by humans.
To prevent the rejection of pig organs, scientists have announced that they can shut down the genes that activate rejection. With the right marketing company, shutting down millions of years of evolution can be sold as a great idea.
The short answer to why medical science wants to use pig organs is an economic one. Over 5000 people a year die waiting for organ transplants because it is not cost effective to save those people. Pigs represent a chance to create a high-volume, high-margin industry of spare parts for humans with the arrogance to live beyond fate and the money to pay for it.
